Original subtitles

This narrow stretch of water is all that separates

the People's Republic of China, ruled by the Communist Party,

from Taiwan, one of Asia's most successful democracies.

What happens out here in the Taiwan Strait

isn't just about Taiwan and China,

it's got the potential to spark a global conflict

that could threaten all of us.

Certainly, the Taiwan Strait right now is one of the most dangerous

and unstable flash points that is facing our world today

and for years to come.

Taiwan is a cork in a bottle.

Whoever controls Taiwan controls the cork in that bottle.

China says it's time for its breakaway province

to return to the motherland.

But Taiwan is standing up to China.

This is a mission impossible.

This is a mission, if it is done or executed,

that may lead directly to Armageddon.

I've been reporting on conflicts in the Pacific region for decades,

but now this could just be the most dangerous place on earth.

You have two nuclear powers, the US and China.

There could be a disaster for the region,

even for the whole world.

2016. Tsai Ing-wen is elected president.

CHEERING

She's the first woman to run Taiwan.

A new era begins.

Her election is unprecedented in another way.

She openly refuses to accept the idea

that Taiwan is a province of China.

For her, this is an independent country.

In China, the reaction is swift.

President Xi Jinping cuts relations.

The desire of the Taiwanese for a more independent future

reverberates across the world.

One China, one Taiwan!

Taiwan's a country! This is my country!

Yeah! Yeah!

Taiwan is Taiwan and China is China. Yes.

Young people voted overwhelmingly for Tsai Ing-wen

and her Democratic Progressive Party.

UNTRANSLATED SINGING

Fire EX. played at the president's inauguration.

UNTRANSLATED SINGING

The band put politics at the heart of their music.

# Tonight we celebrate our love... #

The danger had already been made clear during the election campaign.

A Taiwanese star from the K-Pop group TWICE

appeared on an international TV show

waving Taiwan's, not China's flag.

Chou Tzu-yu didn't mean it as a political statement,

but under pressure from China,

the show's organisers forced her to apologise.

If it was meant to frighten those considering voting for Tsai Ing-wen,

then it backfired.

The new president promised there would be no more such apologies.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I've had a chance to get to know her quite well personally.

As a woman in a predominantly male political environment,

she faced a number of challenges,

but she was able to put her foot down.

She has a strong personality.

And Taiwan's way of life,

its democracy,

which is now universally embraced by people here in Taiwan,

is something that is simply non-negotiable.

Tsai Ing-wen and her inner circle are always careful

not to call publicly for independence.

First of all, we emphasise that Taiwan has been

an independent country, so there's no need now

to declare again the independence of Taiwan.

But we understand and we emphasise that the people in Taiwan

should have the final say about the solution

to the so-called "Taiwan problem".

The "Taiwan problem" began in 1949.

The Communists, under Mao Tse-tung,

forced the nationalist government out of China.

ARCHIVE: One stronghold after another

has fallen to the advancing Reds.

General Chiang Kai-shek fled to the neighbouring island,

taking over a million people with him.

ARCHIVE: War of one kind or another has been their lot

pretty well all their lifetime.

He declared Taiwan, just 100 miles off the mainland,

the Independent Republic of China.

Today, it's only officially recognised as a sovereign nation

by 13 countries.

Victor Gao, a former diplomat,

is regarded as a spokesman for the Chinese government.

From the very beginning, in 1949,

China has always been calling for the reunification of Taiwan.

There is only one China and Taiwan is part of China.

And people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are Chinese people.

Same blood, same civilisation, same culture, same people.

23 million people live in Taiwan,

one of the richest and most dynamic democracies in the world.

Its high-tech industries have made it

one of the most digitally connected societies, too.

China seized advantage of that

when Tsai Ing-wen moved into the presidential palace

in the capital, Taipei.

From the moment she was first elected,

the president and her government became a thorn in the side of China

and the Chinese Communist Party.

Their reaction?

A campaign of misinformation, intimidation and dirty tricks.

Puma Shen and his team investigate attacks and disinformation online.

They've identified disinformation like this -

claims farmers are being bankrupted

because Tsai's election damaged trade with China.

As soon as social media sites close down the accounts,

new ones pop up.

UNTRANSLATED SPEECH

The barrage is relentless.

UNTRANSLATED SPEECH

And where is most of this disinformation coming from?

President Tsai got Taiwan's digital community involved in the fightback.

No country is an island in cyberspace, not even Taiwan.

So we stand ready.

Audrey Tang, a former hacker and Taiwan's first trans minister,

is battling the online attacks from communist China.

I think the main strategic goal is to undermine people's trust

in democratic institutions.

There is a narrative going on

that says only authoritarian, top-down systems

is able to tackle systemic challenges -

trying to say that democracy only leads to chaos.

Billion Lee, a student, became one of Audrey's digital warriors.

Is a lot of this coming from China?

Billion and her friends created this site,

where thousands of facts can be checked automatically by bots.

100,000 facts?

Billion was angry about what she saw online.

Posts undermining Tsai's government's proposal

to make same-sex marriage legal.

This is one such post.

AIDS patients from abroad

purportedly taking advantage of Taiwan's health system.

There were false claims that Tsai's government

spent millions on gay pride parades.

And disinformation exploiting the fact the president isn't married.

Why did you decide to fight back against the disinformation

you were seeing on the internet?

It wasn't just fake news online.

Inside Taiwan, China's supporters were using other tactics, too.

DRUMS PLAY

Chang An-lo's been campaigning for reunification with China

for 20 years.

He was also a leader of a criminal gang here.

He has deep connections with one of the main Triads,

organised crime in Taiwan, known as the Bamboo Union.

Mr Chang spent years in a US prison on drug trafficking charges,

then had to flee Taiwan to mainland China.

The Bamboo Union has been implicated in recent years

in at least one assassination attempt against a Beijing critic

here in Taiwan.

And the authorities here in Taiwan were able to trace the money

for that particular operation back to the PRC.

Hi.Good afternoon.

Mr Chang.

Known as the White Wolf, Mr Chang now heads a political party

calling for unification with China.

Mr Chang is accused of receiving money directly

from the People's Republic of China to carry out his activities.

Are you funded by China? Is your party funded by China?

Mr Chang's followers turn up

when people gather to defend Taiwan's independence.

UPBEAT GLAM ROCK MUSIC PLAYS

In 2017, a Chinese talent show staged at Taiwan University

sparked a student protest.

So, I realised there is a group of students.

So they actually trying to boycott the show.

They rush in

and basically they walk up the stage

and say, "Stop".

The event was staged by Chinese TV from the mainland.

The students said it was a cultural influence operation

by the Communist Party.

Nolan Wu was just walking by.

And then I realised there is someone arguing

and I think they are getting kind of physical.

SCREAMS

A group of men arrived to confront the student protestors.

Mr Chang and his son Chang Wei are keen to show me footage

taken that day.

So, who's this? Who's this there? This person.

These are your people. But they've got big sticks.

SHOUTING

Amongst the fray, one man holds a baseball bat.

Chang Wei rushes out of a car towards the students.

SHOUTING

He throws a punch and the other man hits out with the bat.

So I got hit with a fist here,

and then I got hit at my back with a baseball bat.

That's you, Chang Wei, there.

Did you use violence? Did you hit anybody?

So what happened in the end?

Four students were taken to hospital.

Nolan was one of them.

I was really, really scared.

I was really, really like,

"This should not happen here in Taiwan."

Chang Wei and the man with the bat

received detention orders for assault,

later reduced to fines.

Mr Chang still insists he's just a politician

who believes in reunification.

Do you think that one day there will be peaceful unification

between China and Taiwan?

Two years on from her election victory,

it's 2018 and President Tsai's facing her first big test -

midterm parliamentary elections.

As the campaign progressed, her political opponents

began to push a story.

They claimed Tsai had fabricated her PhD

from the London School of Economics.

A journalist even tried to find her thesis in the library there.

I can try the author if you want me to search by author?

Yeah. T-S-A-I.

Hmm. It's not coming up by author either.

China spotted an opportunity.

Finally, the LSE confirmed she had earned her PhD there.

Tsai's fortunes were at an all-time low.

Her party lost the election,

though she remained the president.

China was winning the war for hearts and minds without firing a shot.

SOLDIERS CHANT

Meanwhile, China was building up its military too,

though President Xi said he wanted peaceful reunification.

I think President Xi Jinping has the full support

of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,

as well as the soldiers

and the officers of the People's Liberation Army.

Does anyone really expect that President Xi Jinping

will abandon the One China policy?

Absolutely not.

China's assertive stance alarmed America,

Taiwan's closest and most powerful ally.

Taiwan is a cork in a bottle.

Whoever controls Taiwan

controls the cork in that bottle.

It's important geographically,

it's important technically because of the industry...

..and it's important because it's a significant

and vibrant democracy.

America supplies Taiwan with weapons, but has always

been careful not to openly support its independence.

It's called strategic ambiguity.

What strategic ambiguity is about

is being unclear

as to what American actions would be

should Beijing move with force on Taiwan.

It blurs the calculus that Beijing would have to deal with.

The United States is illogical, illegitimate, illegal, in a sense,

and it is very much misleading the whole world.

I think it's absolutely absurd for the United States to be so-called

ambiguous about the Taiwan situation.

They need to come up with clarity as to what exactly they want.

Taiwan's close links with the US military has made it a target

for Chinese espionage.

Captain Lu says he was approached with an offer

of an all-expenses-paid trip to the mainland.

He says he refused the offer, but Chinese agents have wined and dined,

and turned, dozens of military officers.

Chinese intelligence services have used honey traps

to snare their prey.

China has even targeted President Tsai herself,

infiltrating her innermost protection ring.

Two officers from her security detail

were found guilty of spying on her.

Chinese spying operations have taken their toll.

Our military is one of the targets that China

has been trying to influence.

So, of course, we have counter-intelligence,

countermeasures to deal with the problem.

But I have to say, it's not 100% that we can defend ourselves

from that kind of penetration.

Though the Chinese mainland is just across the water,

the People's Liberation Army would find it difficult

to invade Taiwan.

The island has a spine of high and rugged mountains.

It's only when you get up here in the mountains that you realise

what an incredible natural geographical defensive position

Taiwan has, even though it's one of the most densely populated

countries in the world.

Taiwan is building up a bristling array of formidable weapons,

all part of what they call their Porcupine Strategy.

Taiwan may have these advanced weapons,

but Chinese forces are 12 times bigger.

Taiwan has been slow to arm itself.

It still depends heavily on America for advanced weapons.

The idea is to begin to take advantage of the technology

that's available today, to be able to put in place small numbers

of weapon systems that, for want of a better term, could shred

an invading force that wanted to come across the beaches.

After her party's poor election showing, President Tsai

is under pressure.

President Xi is about to show Taiwan he means business.

CROWD CHANTS

Taiwan watched as China took back control

of another wayward territory.

Hong Kong.

A pro-democracy movement was ruthlessly put down there.

So what's this, Kasey?

Performance artist Kasey Wong

was amongst the protesters in Hong Kong.

That's you dressed as the policeman?

That's right.

And what's the meaning?

The Chinese government try to treat the Hong Kong citizens

as if they are the Chinese citizens

and send the Hong Kong people

to mainland for unfair trial.

So I want to express that.

Kasey fled to Taiwan, like many others from Hong Kong.

He's holding an exhibition in an old jail in Taipei.

Chiang Kai-shek locked up political prisoners here

during years of martial law.

It's a reminder to people of the fragility of their democracy.

I kind of know the future of Hong Kong is doomed.

Why I decided to come to Taiwan?

Because I know the next battlefield will become Taiwan.

China had promised Hong Kong it could still remain a democracy,

though it would be part of communist China.

The same offer was also made to Taiwan.

I think the Taiwan people sees what happened to Hong Kong

could happen to their own city.

One country, two systems happened to Hong Kong, and see what happened?

It become one country, one system.

And I don't think the people of Taiwan will buy that.

BAND PLAYS

The events in Hong Kong revived President Tsai's fortunes

just in time. She was reaching the end of her four-year term in office

and was now campaigning for re-election.

China has been selling the so-called one country, two system model

to Taiwan, and they try to show that it's workable

or it's working in Hong Kong, so it should be applicable to Taiwan.

But, you know, it turned out not to be the case.

So it becomes a very difficult product

for Beijing to sell to the people in Taiwan.

The future of Taiwan will never be decided by the 23 million people

in Taiwan themselves.

The future of Taiwan will be decided by the more than 1.4 billion people

on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

The President already had the support of the younger

generation, but Hong Kong changed views across Taiwanese society.

In the parks here, older residents gather

for their daily dancing sessions.

Many of them, or their parents, came from mainland China.

This generation didn't used to be strongly

in favour of independence. It's different now.

China's heavy-handed approach to Taiwan, as we've seen in places

like Hong Kong as well, has actually backfired.

So rather than win the hearts and minds of the Taiwanese,

it ends up alienating them and further compounding a desire

among the Taiwanese to defend their way of life and their democracy.

CROWD CHEERS

PERSON SHOUTS OVER MICROPHONE

After the events in Hong Kong, in 2020 Tsai Ing-wen wins her second

presidential term with a landslide.

In the weeks following the election result, Taiwan was hit with a series

of cyber attacks. Petrol stations across the land were disabled -

people couldn't use their cards to pay,

sparking fears China was targeting vital services here.

What they have achieved is just very shallow on the surface.

But information manipulation, the disinformation,

tries to exaggerate it and say that,

"Oh, we've taken over critical infrastructure," and so on,

which was not the case.

And we also think that a lot of it is about getting people's, uh,

like, anxiety level high so that even though they only achieve

a little bit, they get amplified

so that people feel very anxious all the time.

That year, the pandemic - which began in China -

added to the anxiety.

Taiwan had one of the lowest death rates in the world.

But a new wave of disinformation was directed at its citizens.

There have been false claims on social media of a mass outbreak

of Covid here. Even fake news

the President herself had been infected and it was covered up.

All attempts to discredit Taiwan's strong performance

during the pandemic.

China's campaign to undermine their government was affecting

how Taiwanese people see their identity.

Traditional houses in the mountains specialise in the tea ceremony.

People still value their Chinese heritage, but polls suggest

that attitudes to reunification are changing.

The desire of the Taiwanese people to have political union with China

is at an all-time low, under 10%.

The majority of people just want things to stay as they are.

But the numbers in favour of independence are growing.

A third of the population believe they're both Taiwanese and Chinese,

but nearly two thirds now say they're Taiwanese only.

Language has become important in forging a separate identity.

HE SINGS IN TAIWANESE

Fire EX. mostly sing in Taiwanese, not Mandarin -

the main language of China imposed on the population

by Chiang Kai-shek.

As the gap between the generations narrows, it becomes harder for China

to win hearts and minds.

In Taiwan's National Museum, children learn

about their Chinese heritage.

We have great paintings and calligraphy and ceramics.

So over here, you see a Qing dynasty jade cabbage.

Jadeite cabbage, to be specific.

It's beautiful.

This sculpture came from the palace of the Chinese Emperor

in Beijing's Forbidden City.

Chiang Kai-shek brought it to Taiwan with thousands of other treasures,

and China wants them all back.

That's why our collection never travels, and is never publicly

displayed in countries without immunity from legal seizure.

Because of China's desire to have them back again?

Yes. Yes, that's the fear.

Late last year, it was discovered three porcelain pieces

in the collection were broken.

The museum had known for a while, but hadn't admitted it.

The breakages were seized on by the Chinese government,

who slammed the Taiwan authorities.

In a state newspaper, they said,

"Only under reunification can national treasures be better

"protected and better play their role in passing on the bloodline

"of the Chinese civilisation."

In museum work, incidents like this are not very rare

because sometimes, due to structural...

Um, due to the composition of the object, due to age,

objects would deteriorate. Yes.

But China's been able to use it to say the museum is not capable

of looking after the treasures - they should go back to China.

SHE CHUCKLES

Right.

What I say represents my personal opinion,

but I do think here we take great care

of this cultural heritage passed on to us

that belongs to people around the world.

After Tsai Ing-wen is re-elected, China steps up its military activity

in the Taiwan Strait.

Xi Jinping repeats his warning.

Tsai responds on Taiwan's National Day.

America sends warships through the Strait.

Strategic ambiguity now becomes a firm pledge

to come to Taiwan's defence if China attacks.

The stalemate in the Taiwan Strait continues...

It's happened before, in the 1950s.

Batteries on Red China's mainland have almost sealed off

the island from help.

When Chinese artillery bombarded Taiwanese islands closest

to the mainland, America stepped in.

Kinmen was one of those islands,

only a few miles from China in the Taiwan Strait.

You can see the mainland and the skyscrapers of a Chinese city

from Kinmen's beaches.

This place has borne the brunt of war with its neighbour for decades.

These rusting relics hold memories of an earlier conflict

that people here hoped they'd never see again.

Kinmen's still on the front line.

Councillor Tung Sen-Pao knows everyone here.

What do people here feel about China?

It's so close, just over the water.

Local people are ambivalent about their relationship

with China today.

Wu Tseng-Dong grew up under fire.

Now he makes his living turning old shells into knives

for sale to Chinese tourists from the mainland.

In the local market,

memories of the last war with China are still strong.

But there are also close family and economic ties with the mainland.

And more support here for reunification.

SHOUTS ORDERS, THEY CHANT

Chinese tourists are trickling back to wartime sites here

after the pandemic.

They're a vital economic lifeline for the island,

which now capitalises on its troubled history.

SHOUTS

LOUD BANG

In Kinmen, they still feel like a pawn between the superpowers.

China doesn't treat any of the Strait

as Taiwan's territorial water.

Out there in the sea is the median line,

the invisible boundary between Taiwan and China.

It was defined by America,

but has never been recognised by China.

There are massive Chinese dredgers here digging up sand to build

infrastructure on the mainland.

They also create new islands and military outposts in the Pacific.

These dredgers are stretching almost as far as I can see.

I'm counting more than a dozen,

and there are more up ahead.

SIREN WAILS

UNTRANSLATED

In just three years, the number of dredgers expelled

by the Taiwanese coastguard has gone up from 600 to nearly 4,000.

Dredgers have damaged internet cables on the seabed

connecting Taiwan with the rest of the world.

SPEAKS OVER RADIO

China is accused of using vessels like this in a campaign

of grey-zone warfare.

What Beijing is doing is creating an environment where they can be

much more aware of everything that is moving above,

on and under the water, which would give them

tremendous advantage should there be a conflict in the Strait.

An invasion, a naval blockade,

destruction of global communication links -

a lot's at stake here.

If there were to be war in the Taiwan Strait,

the impact, if only in economic terms, would be in the trillions

of dollars for the first year.

Not to mention the fact that the Chinese would then access

the world's key producer of the most advanced semiconductors

that now fuel the entire global economy.

90% of advanced semiconductors -

the chips we all use in our digital devices - are made in Taiwan.

America's racing to build chip factories in Arizona

with Taiwanese partners, but it will take years.

China's top priority is to develop its own high-end chip industry.

There have been accusations of dirty tricks here, too.

So there was human espionage.

They have recruited individuals, offered them large sums of money

to be employed in semiconductor firms back in China, but also

with them in their luggage would carry hard drives

that contain plans for a semiconductor,

and try to replicate that back in China.

But China still relies heavily on Taiwan's advanced technology.

This science park near Taipei, full of semiconductor companies,

is Taiwan's jewel in the crown.

Some see it as a silicon shield because it's just too valuable

to damage or destroy.

China ramps up its military activity in the Taiwan Strait in 2022.

In February, there's a wake-up call.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine

alarmed a lot of people in Taiwan.

And in other words,

war is not unthinkable.

So people begin to believe that we should prepare ourselves

for the worst-case scenario.

That's one lesson we learned from the Ukrainian war.

Taiwan's young people are realising they, too,

may have to defend their homeland.

This is Camp 66, a civilian defence training unit.

They're drawing lessons here from what happened in Ukraine.

A citizen force galvanised into action against an invader,

and holding fast against all expectations.

The number of people paying to come to private camps like this

quadrupled in the past year.

Compulsory military service has been increased

from four to 12 months.

I hope that I don't need these skills.

I hope I don't ever need to do this at all.

But when it comes to it, I need to be prepared.

You're determined to fight?

I think so. This is my home. This is my family. Yeah.

I should.

Ukraine taught Taiwan it was vital to stay connected

in the event of war.

They're developing their own satellite network

to keep communications going.

We're quite similar in the sense that we're both,

well, in the front line, standing firm

in the face of authoritarian expansionism.

If, for example, we didn't have the broadcasting,

the daily addresses from Kyiv and so on,

then of course the information manipulators,

the deepfakes and so on, will probably win the day.

As tension increased in the Strait last summer, a top US politician,

Nancy Pelosi, made a controversial visit to Taiwan.

During her visit, there was another wave of cyber attacks.

Electronic boards at train stations and thousands of convenience stores

were hijacked. She was branded a witch, a warmonger.

Nancy Pelosi's illegitimate visit to Taiwan

was only serving one purpose and one purpose only.

She was encouraging Taiwan independence.

The visit coincided with emerging signs of instability in China,

a slowing economy, and a Xi Jinping who was seeking a third term

later in the year as well.

So anything that appeared as a slap in the face, that undermined his

hardline position on Taiwan, was also something

that was deemed provocative.

Nancy Pelosi is playing with fire -

with the lives of the American soldiers,

with the lives of the American people,

with the lives of the Chinese people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Hours after Nancy Pelosi left, China launched live fire exercises,

unprecedented in recent history.

11 missiles landed in Taiwan's territorial waters

and flew over the island eastwards, towards Japan.

SHOUTS

Was it wise for her to come?

Wasn't it just antagonising China unnecessarily?

I think China just used that as a pretext

to justify its military exercises in the region.

China would do it with or without Nancy Pelosi's visit.

They just used that as an excuse.

Chinese jets crossed the invisible boundary in the Taiwan Strait...

..to show it would never deter them.

This was psychological warfare aimed at the Taiwanese to punish them,

to try also to demonstrate that the Taiwanese military does not

have the ability to counter these activities very close

to Taiwanese-controlled waters.

China has demonstrated to the United States that China

has the military capabilities to completely encircle Taiwan,

to cutting off its connection by sea or by air, if necessary,

with the rest of the world.

And China has the political will as well as military capabilities

to achieve national reunification by force if it is necessary.

Life goes on here, though China keeps ratcheting up the threat.

BELL DINGS

President Tsai is in the last year of her final term,

and many people are fearful.

Fire EX. still play the song they wrote nearly a decade ago.

They believe their fight for independence

is even more vital today.

Sam, if there was military action by China, even an invasion,

would you fight for Taiwan?

Sure.

ECHOEY MUSIC PLAYS

On Kinmen Island, propaganda songs played during the war in the '50s

still drift across the Strait at night.

A ghostly echo of the unfinished business between China and Taiwan.

You have two nuclear powers, the US and China.

So it's not just a war between Taiwan and China.

There could be a disaster for the region,

even for the whole world.

How likely is that, do you think, from where we sit now?

Well, again, the ball is not in our court.

The ball is in Beijing's court.

How can any power in the world of today really believe

they have the wherewithal to take Taiwan away from China?

This is a mission impossible.

This is a mission, if it is done or executed,

may lead directly to Armageddon.

The last seven years have turned most Taiwanese against reunification

with the mainland. China is running out of options

to solve its Taiwan problem peacefully.